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After 20 years of frantic city-building, rustic China is in a death spiral. Now architects are helping to reverse the exodus – with inspirational tofu factories, rice wine distilleries and lotus tea plants — The Guardian
Oliver Wainwright, The Guardian's architecture critic, on the new crop of Chinese architects seeking to create a renewed sense of local pride and cultural identity across the country's vast rural areas. "After an era of foreign architects using China as their playground," Wainwright quotes design... View full entry
INT: Do you think sustainability in architecture is less of an issue in Japan?
KK: Historically, traditional Japanese architecture uses very sustainable designs that incorporate features such as natural ventilation instead of air conditioning, and things like that. But in the 20th century, as Western culture came to Japan, we forgot these kinds of designs. That’s what I’m trying to go back to.
— It's Nice That
"My dream is to start my own school and pass my lessons on to younger generations in the same way that Frank Lloyd Wright did with his School of Architecture at Taliesin [in Wisconsin]," Kengo Kuma told It's Nice That when asked about his future aspirations. "He has inspired me in many ways, but I... View full entry
“Whether there is or is not a Northwest regional style of architecture is debatable,” said John Yeon in 1986, “but what is certain is that lot of people want to think there is.” — Places Journal
In "A Fortuitous Shadow," Keith Eggener is inspired by the Portland Art Museum's recent exhibition on John Yeon's life and legacy to explore the concept of regionalism in architecture, beginning with the doubts expressed by the architect long associated with Pacific Northwest regional modernism. View full entry
Today's Editor's Picks is a special themed "place based" edition - highlighting content (old/newish) from the archives/site - about Denver and Colorado. Partly as an apology for the brief/unexpected lull in the Picks. Also, inspired by my own recent relocation to The Mile High City. Just one part of an ongoing attempt to learn about my new home.
While MArch students at the University of Colorado, Denver, Patrick Beseda and Lacy Williams realized a design/build project for a micro-dwelling. FOUNDhouse inspired by the WikiHouse project, was an exploration of digital fabrication, the possibilities of DIY and the democratization of... View full entry
The architect Freddy Mamani Silvestre’s extravagant urban mansions in El Alto, Bolivia, have been derided as kitschy-looking cohetillos, meaning “spaceships”—giving his work the nickname “spaceship architecture.”
But the admirers of Freddy Mamani, as he is generally known, say his colorful “new Andean” style has also served to reinvent a city once aesthetically monochromatic, and that he has found a way to bring traditional Andean and Tiwanaku cultures into an urban setting.
— qz.com
Previously: 'Neo-Andean' architecture sprouts in Bolivia View full entry
Architecture, however, is a social art, rather than a personal one, a reflection of a society and its values rather than a medium of individual expression. So it’s a problem when the prevailing trend is one of franchises, particularly those of the globe-trotters: Renzo, Rem, Zaha and Frank.
It’s exciting to bring high-powered architects in from outside... But in the long run it’s wiser to nurture local talent; instead of starchitects, locatects.
— tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com
For more than a century, [Helsinki] has funded its own statistics bureaus to keep data on the population, businesses, building permits, and most other things you can think of. [...]
Helsinki and three of its neighboring cities are now banding together... Through an entity called Helsinki Region Infoshare, they are bringing together their data so that a fuller picture of the metro area can come into view.
— citiscope.org
As city governments become stronger drivers of infrastructural change, and the idea of a "connected city" becomes imminent, cities must learn how to manage and wield the vast amount of data collected. Parallel developments in city demographics, creating stronger links between cities within a... View full entry
